BOOKS.
GLEANINGS OF A NATURALIST IN AUSTRALASIA.• THE instructive and amusing volume published under this un- pretending title is the work-of One who has been for nearly half a century much more than a gleaner in the field of Australasian zoology. Dr. Bennett's scientific attainments are well known to the naturalists of Europe, and many of the mOst distinguished amongst them can testify how much their labours have been aided by his able and liberal cooperation. He begins his " gleanings " on the coasts of Australia, where innumerable attractive, and as yet imperfectly described forms of animal life present themselves, and the first he notices is the beautiful Physalia Pelagica, or " Portu- guese Man of War," which abounds in Port Jackson and the neighbouring bays. The body or hull of this skimmer of the seas, consists of an oblong air bladder, about five inches long and half as deep, remarkable- for its delicacy of form and brilliancy of Colours, and is furnished. beneath with two sets of tentacula, the one set short and thick, the other several feet in length ; capable of retraction, and also of being darted out with great rapidity to a distance of twelve or even eighteen feet. The tenacity of their sucker-like extremities, their intense stinging power, and'the ve- locity of their movements, make them an admirable organ of pre- hension.* They also constitute the animal's only digestive appa- ratus, the food held by their terminal stickers passing speedily into their tubular portions by absorption. The physalia appears to have no power of voluntary locomotion, but to be wafted about by the wind; nor could Dr. Bennett ever find that it could di- minish or increase the quantity of air in the bladder. The latter in every instance continued always intensely inflated, and dissec- tion showed that there is no apparatus by which the quantity of its contents could be varied at will. The common assertion, therefore, that the creature has the power of collapsing and sinking On the approach of a storm and of coming to the surface again with the return of fine weather, is to be rejected as a fable. Dr. Bennett has seen heaps of these acalephs cast ashore in stormy weather, every one of them having the bladder still inflated. - Of several kinds of shark met with in the Austral seas one is the Port Jackson shark, a small species resembling the dogfish of our own coast, and found only within the limits of the harbour from which it derives its name. It is interesting to geologists as the cominonest species of Cestraeion, a genus whichis now the sole existing representative of many that once peopled our North- ern seas. An enormous species of shark (Carcharms leucas) was oltptured with a harpoon, in Port Jackson, early in 1858, and is -*ell preserved in the Australian Museum. It measured 12 feet 4. inches in length, and 6 feet 7 inches round the middle -of the body, and it made a desperate fight for life or for revenge, though its dinner must have lain heavy on its stomach, for when this was **Tied its contents were found to be—half a ham ; several legs of mutton ; -hind-quarter of a pig ; head and forelegs of a bulldog, with a rope round its neck ; a quantity; of horse flesh ; a piece of sacking, and a ship's scraper. A still larger specimen of the same species, killed in the same place and year, had in the lower jaw two rows of teeth inclined backward and moveable, and in the upper jaw one prominent row, and five or more rows fully formed and well serrated, lying down under the loose thick skin or gum inside the mouth, ready to supply the place of the front rows when damaged by use or broken by accident. The largeSt of the prominent teeth was an inch and a quarter long, of triangular form, and serrated on each side. The Luminous Shark (Squalus falgens) is a small fish. Specimens taken by Dr. Bennett and his brother varied in length from 51 to 18 inches. The luminous Power seems to reside in a peculiar secretion of the skin, and as this little shark is highly predaceous, a bad swimmer, and evi- dently of nocturnal habits, the light is probably useful to it in its night fishing. It is a greenish, phosphorescent gleam, issuing from the whole under surface of the body and head, except the black collar' round the throat, and imparting to the creature a ghastly and terrific appearance. In one of the specimens it was seen to be manifestly dependent upon nervous action, for when it had become so faint as to be almost imperceptible, it was readily rekindled on the animal being disturbed or excited.
The pearly Nautilus possesses the power, erroneously attributed to the Physalia, of descending at will to the bottom of the sea or rising to the surface. It is, therefore, very hard to capture, and tin:nigh the shell was not uncommon, the animal inhabiting it had never been seen by any naturalist for more than a hundred years until Dr. Bennett caught one in 1829, and sent it to Professor Owen, who made it the subject of hie well-known monograph. Before he wrote it, he went to Paris and saw envier, whom he asked if he had ever seen the animal in. question ? "No, sir," was the reply ; "I have not seen it, and I never shall." The expression was prophetic, for when Owen had finished his mono- graph and sealed up a copy to send. to Cuvier, the news arrived that the great anatomist was dead. It was on a calm evening in August that Dr. Bennett descried his nautilus floating on the water keel uppermost, and looking like a dead tortoiseshell cat. It was in the act of sinking when the boat approached, but the shell being broken with the boat-hook, its escape was prevented. At the bottom of the sea, where the Nautilus preys on crustacea,
• Oatherings of a Naturalist in Australasia; being Obseivations principally on the Animal and Vegetable Productions of New South Wales, New Zealand, and some of the Austral Islands. By George Bennett, M.D., F.L.S., F.Z.S., &c., Author of "Wanderings in New South Wales, Singapore, and China." Published by Van Voorst. it carries its shell on its back, like a snail. 114 es . t. guo •Is • caPture New Hebribes, New Caledonia, and the Fidgi e it as a Oleic
in wicker baskets, made like cage rat-traps, and
e5. ^k article of food.. , bin pja t The most curious quadruped of Australia is the Duk,,elewne has, S. pus or Water-mole (Ornithorhynchus Paradoxus) and notino.,„,;;:a° much that is new and authentic to tell of its habit's as our'iallat,r!,. who devotes fifty-two pages to its history. Ile has satisfied him- self by repeated experiments that the "poisonous spurs" of the male animal, of which such terrible tales have been circumstan- tially told, are not poisonous at all, that they are never used as offensive weapons, and that the purpose for which they are designed has yet to be discovered. The creature is perfectly harmless, but its questionable shape has got it a bad name. Even dogs, unless specially trained, stare at it in angry alarm, and are afraid to touoh it, and cats ran from it immediately. The burrow of the water-mole is some twenty feet long, and slopes upwards from an orifice near the water's edge. Dr. Bennett was the first European who explored one of these burrows, and took from it a living specimen. His belief, founded upon numerous dissections, upon the absence of anything like fragments of egg-shells in burrows containing young, and upon other indications, as that the animal is ovoviviparous, and that it breeds only every two years. Three young ones which he kept alive for a while were very playful and amusing pets. When running, they were exceedingly ani- mated, their little eyes glistened, and the orifices of their ears dilated and contracted with rapidity. They often climbed like ciliimney-sweeps to the top of a book-case by placing their backs
against the wall, and their feet against the their strong cutaneous muscles aiding greatly in their ascent which was effected very expeditiously. Sometimes they formed a curious- looking group, "one lying on its back with outstretched paws, another on its side, and the third coiled or rolled up like a hedge- hog . . . . the forepaws being placed under the beak, with the head and mandibles bent down towards the tail, the hindpaws crossed over the mandibles, and the tail turned up." They lived only five weeks in captivity; and their owner was equally unsuccessful in a subsequent attempt to keep alive two others of these strange ani- mals, in consequence, as he believes, Of their not having been sup- plied with their proper nutriment. How to do this anywhere, but above all, during a voyage to Europe, is .a very diffieult problem ; but Dr. Bennett is bent on solving it, and hopes that the ladies of England will yet have "an opportunity of beholding these really darling little ducks of quadrupeds."
The Times of Wednesday last contained a remarkable letter from Mr. Edward Wilson an eminent Australian colonist, on a project for a systematic interchange of valuable animals between England and her colonies and the acelimatation of these imports in their new countries. A notable beginning of this great work has been made, the lead in it being taken by Australian enterprise, and with brilliant results in several instances. The intelligent interest which it is known to have excited in all classes at Melbourne and. other Australian centres of population presents the best possible security against the continuance of that wanton eestruction which has already gone near to exterminate many of the indigenous birds and quadrnpeds, and which would soon, as our outlier de- clares, convert into a reality what was at first mentioned as a joke —namely, that an order should be sent to England for supplying a Zoological Garden at Sydney with birds and other animals from their collection, now rare or nearly extinct, in Australia. All the wingless birds are fast disappearing ; among the rarest of them is the Mooruk, a species of Cassowary, discovered by Dr. Bennett in the island of New Britain, and called by Mr. Gould " Cas- snaring Bennetti." There are three examples of this fine bird in the London Zoological Gardens, the first of which was presented by its discoverer in May 1858.
The grandest of all the Australian birds—to judge from the portrait and description of it in Dr. Bennett's volume—is the New Holland Jabiru, or Gigantic Crane of the colonists (Myeteria Aus- tralis). These birds have a wide range over the vast island, par- ticularly on its Northern coasts, but are so difficult of approach as to be seldom seen dead or alive. Our author became possessed of the first living specimen brought to Sydney ; he had seen only four skins of the bird during a residence of twenty-two years. His specimen measured 3 feet 10 inches to the top of its head, and had not yet grown to its full height, which is said to be 4 or 5 feet. Notwithstanding its large black mandibles, which remind one of those of the Adjutant, the Jabiru is very graceful in all its attitudes and movements. It is gentle and good-tempered, familiar with all around it, fond of being noticed and admired, and, though not timid, yet always keeping its very large and remarkably brilliant eyes on the watch for any act of aggression." Its manner wins upon you and a feeling of attachment arises towards it from its placid, tame, domesticated manner, elegance of form, graceful carriage, and beautiful metal- lic brilliancy of plumage, more especially over the head and neck." Dr. Bennett's bird was caught by some blacks, who brought it into the town, and sold it for five shillings' worth of tobacco— •
" The first evening it was at my house, it walked into the hall, gazed at the gas-lamp whith had just been lighted, and then proceeded to walk up- stairs, seeking for a roosting-place ; but not liking the ascent, quietly came down again, returned into the yard, and afterwards went to roost in the coach-house, between the carriages, to which place it now retires regularly every evening soon after dark. It may always be found in that part of the yard where the sun is shining, and with its face invariably towards it. When hungry, it seeks for the cook, (who usually feeds it,) and if she has neglected its food, loofa into the kitchen, as if to remind her of the neglect, ana wits quietly, b t with a searching eye, during the time the meat is
y i
cutting up, untilit is fed. It is amusing to observe this bird catch flies ; it remain very quiet, as if asleep, and on a fly passing, it is snapped up ,in an nstant. The only time I observed any mani- festation of anger in it was when the Mooruks were introduced into the yard where it was parading about ; these rapid, fussy, noisy birds, running about its range, excited, its indignation ; for on their comirr, near, it slightly elevated the brilliant feathers of the head, its eyes became very bright, it ruffled its feathers, and clattered its mandibles, as if about to try their sword-like edge upon the intruding Mooruks ; but the anger subsided without further demonstration than an occasional flap- ping of its powerful wings. One day, however, on one of the Mooruks approaching too near him, he seized it by the neck with his mandibles, on which the Mooruk ran away, and did not appear in any way injured. "The Jabiru is an expensive bird to keep, consuming a pound and a half of meat daily, and being a very dainty feeder, the meat must be particu- larly fresh and good. When he was first placed in the yard where some . poultry were kept, he stared at the fowls, and they ran away on his approach, although he did not make the least attempt to molest them ; and when striding round the yard, all the poultry fled before him, although it did i not appear to be an ntentional chase on his part. There happened to be a pugnacious, fussy, little Bantum-cock in the yard, who would not permit the intrusion of any stranger, and on seeing the Jabiru he strutted up with expanding and fluttering wings and ruffled' feathers, in a violent state of excitement, cackling and screaming most vehemently, and making efforts as energetic as so diminutive a bird was capable of, to frighten and drive him out of the yard. The Jabiru, with his keen bright eyes, regarded the little fluttering object with cool contempt, and walked about as before ; the bantam followed. At last the Jabiru turned, and strode after the con- sequential little creature, as if to crush it under his feet; when the ban turn, seeing matters take this serious turn, made off as fast as possible—like all little bullies—and did not again venture to attack so formidable an oppo- nent. In a few days, the Jabiru became quite domesticated among the poultry, and they evinced no fear ; even the little bantum tolerated his presence, but whether from fear or affection I know not."
This noble representative of the most gentlemanly of all the feathered tribes had hardly been four months in his new quarters when he succumbed to the same fate as our author's other rare pets, the water moles. A fit of indigestion carried him off on the 30th of January 1859, and his skeleton is now in the British Museum.
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